Suffolk Constabulary’s Project Vigilant launched on Saturday, November 29, 2025, with the aim of identifying anti-social behaviour and making the streets safer for women and girls in the evenings.
Since launching, 29 arrests have been made, ranging from sexual assaults, thefts, assaults, drugs and failure to abide by a dispersal order, with people staying in the town despite police asking them to leave.
Police officers at Project Vigilant (Image: Tom Cann)
They have also observed 207 people since launching, looking at people behaving in ways that are concerning to the police and interacting with those people, with some leading to arrests.
41 stop-searches have also been carried out, 18 of which have been positive for drugs.
Chief inspector Matt Breeze said: “It’s quite an impactful tactic because it generates arrests, positive stop searches and allows us to talk to people about their behaviour.
“It’s an ongoing project because we’ve seen it as a success with the impact it has had.”
Chief Inspector Matt Breeze (Image: Tom Cann)
Mr Breeze continued: “I think things like this should give women and girls confidence that they can come out into the night time economy and have a good time knowing that we are there, intervening with people that are showing behaviours which are not acceptable, and intervening potentially leading to an arrest, so that those women and girls can go out and have an enjoyable evening.
“Ipswich and Suffolk is really safe, and now there aren’t 29 people out there that want to cause harm.
“We are trying to enhance the safety in Ipswich by deploying these officers who are there to look out for those people who are concerning.”
Police officers from Project Vigilant (Image: Tom Cann)
Both uniformed and plain-clothed officers patrol the streets of Ipswich to look for this behaviour in the evenings.
If a plain-clothed officer spots something, they can say something on their mic, which is picked up by someone looking at CCTV from across the town, and uniformed officers.
Uniformed officers will then go to the scene to speak to those involved.